


and we could be too

by quicheand



Series: monsters [2]
Category: K-pop, SHINee
Genre: I'm Bad At Tagging, M/M, Organized Crime
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-25
Updated: 2012-06-25
Packaged: 2018-05-18 15:03:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 11,508
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5932648
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quicheand/pseuds/quicheand
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Taemin comes back and for whatever reason, the first person he contacts is Onew; but things like trust, once lost, are hard to regain.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

 

 

Jinki's just gotten used to living a normal life again, just gotten used to working a normal part-time job at the local supermarket on weekends and between classes, when he can. At first, people recognized him all the time; it took a long time before he was able to go out without being followed by strangers' eyes and the clicking of camera shutters, but eventually the clamor around him started to die down, fame falling away along with the dyed locks of hair and makeup and fancy clothes. He'd gotten back in touch with some of his old friends, then, and moved out of his parents' house into a place of his own, and gone back to school, to the college career he'd sort-of-kind-of started but never come close to finishing. He's almost forgotten about being part of SHINee by now; he's almost forgotten about being Onew.

That's part of the reason it's so shocking when he comes home to his empty apartment after class one Thursday to find Taemin sitting on his ratty secondhand couch, alone in the dark in the living room. It's so dark, in fact, that Jinki doesn't notice anything out of the ordinary until Taemin speaks up.

“Onew hyung,” he says, voice clear and boyish as the memories that are instantly reborn in Jinki's mind. Jinki starts, jumping a foot into the air and barely holding himself back from yelping. He drops his keys; they land on the threadbare carpet with a clatter. “I mean Jinki hyung,” Taemin says, more quietly.

“Shit,” says Jinki, and bends down. He means to pick up his keys, but then, once he's crouching, he finds that his head is spinning and what he really wants to do is sit down, so he does that instead. “Shit,” he says again.

Taemin seems unperturbed by this sudden failure of Onew's vocabulary, and sits calmly, not moving from his initial position on the couch. He looks out of place there, somehow, too put-together to belong in Jinki's shabby apartment, to belong in Jinki's shabby average life.

“I'm back,” says Taemin, unnecessarily.

“Yeah,” Jinki says with an incredulous half-laugh. “Just. Just give me a minute,” he says, and then bends his neck until his head resting between his knees. He breathes in and out a few times until his head stops spinning, and then looks up.

Taemin is still there, looking at him with amusement.

“Okay,” says Jinki, mostly to himself. “You're back.”

“Can you stand up yet?” says Taemin.

Jinki blinks at the hint of laughter in Taemin's voice. “Sure. Sure I can stand,” he says, and does.

 

 

It's awkward at first; they haven't seen each other in three years, and Jinki's still apprehensive of this boy who changed his world one day and then, four years later, disappeared just as suddenly as he'd stepped into Jinki's life.

But they talk—mostly Taemin asking Jinki questions he knows the answers to already at first, but then Jinki works up the nerve to ask Taemin how he's been (“Not bad, mostly”), where he's been (“Around,” with a shrug), and no really, where's he been (“Fine, Thailand for a while, and then sightseeing in Europe, and then just around”). As far as Jinki can tell, Taemin's still the same person. And maybe that means he still has dark secrets he hides from the world, but it also means that he's still the strange, silly kid who laughs at all of Jinki's corny jokes and smiles like light turning the whole world to gold.

They talk until late, until too late, probably, and Jinki's starting to feel warm and a little sleepy when Taemin stands up and says he should go.

“But I'll come back again,” he promises, and Jinki knows he should stay away from Taemin, should tell Taemin to stay away from him, but he feels his heart expand a little despite what his brain is telling him.

There's no rhyme or reason to Taemin's visits. Sometimes Jinki just comes home and finds Taemin waiting for him, and other times he finds only his empty apartment, dim and lifeless. Sometimes he half-wakes in the middle of the night and thinks he hears someone shuffling around in the hall, and even though in the morning there's no sign that anyone was there, Jinki knows it was Taemin.

There's this habit Jinki has, back from the days when he was still Onew: whenever Taemin opens his eyes wide in false innocence, shines that bright smile in Jinki's direction, Jinki tends to forget all his resolutions not to trust Taemin too deeply, not to rely too deeply on him, and falls into Taemin's trap all over again. He thought he'd kicked the habit with Taemin's sudden disappearance years ago, but now that Taemin's back, he sees it was only hibernating after all, waiting for Taemin to come back before catching hold of Jinki's heart again.

 _Don't forget who he really is_ , Jonghyun used to say, never forget. And it's not that Jinki forgets about the things Taemin does when Jinki's not with him, but—Jinki's not with him when Taemin does those things, and that makes it so, so easy to ignore them. So, so easy to gaze into huge warm eyes while Taemin talks excitedly about nothing; so, so easy to smile back and then lean into Taemin and pretend they're something they're not.

 

 

The water is on in the kitchen. That's the first thing Jinki thinks when he wakes in the middle of the night. He lies there for a few moments, flat on his back and looking up at the ceiling, but the water doesn't shut off, and after a while he gets up and pads out to see what Taemin is up to.

His elbows in blood, apparently. Jinki's soft intake of breath alerts Taemin to his presence, and he peers at Jinki from beneath hooded eyelids, water still running over his rust-stained hands.

“It's not mine,” he says, after a beat.

Jinki stares at the blood for a minute, then turns to walk back toward his bedroom.

Taemin tries to defend himself, even though Jinki hasn't said anything. “I'm sorry I haven't changed,” he calls after Jinki. “I'm sorry I'm still this person, but I can't change—this is the life I was born into.”

“That's not the part I minded,” says Jinki, without turning around. “I would have done anything for you,” he says. “I would have overlooked anything—anything but being left alone by the person I thought I loved.”

Taemin's quiet a moment, and Jinki thinks for a second that he's gotten to him, that Taemin can hurt too, can feel guilt. Then Taemin says, “So what, I was supposed to put myself in danger and stay behind for you? Or what, take you with me? Nothing happened between us. I didn't owe you anything.”

“You knew how I felt about you,” Jinki says.

“And if I ever gave any indication that I felt the same way about you,” Taemin replies, “it was an accident, and I'm sorry.”

For one wild moment, Jinki thinks Taemin is going to take it back, apologize. Then he jerks back to reality, and his feet jerk him back towards the darkness of the bedroom. He shuts the door more forcefully than perhaps he should and leans back against it, eyes closed. The sink runs for another few minutes, and then there's a small squeak as it's turned off; a minute later, the front door opens and then closes again.

Jinki goes back to bed, but he doesn't get any more sleep that night.

 

 

“Why me?” Jinki asks one day. “Why not Minho, or Jonghyun, or Key?”

Taemin pauses, tilts his head. It's a minute before he replies. “Because you were never scared of me,” he says. “Because you were too in love with me to be scared.”

Jinki wonders then if he should have been scared, after all.

 

 

It's not hard to tell when Taemin's lying. He doesn't bother to mask it at all, lets his voice drop into sarcasm or lilt upwards with teasing playfulness.

The problem is when Taemin's telling the truth, because even when he's being honest it's hard, sometimes, to tell exactly what he means. Taemin's thoughts run in a different language than what most people speak, Jinki thinks, and sometimes when he says one thing, he really means another; maybe he doesn't even realize the rest of the world hears something different than what he's thinking.

Or maybe—maybe Taemin himself doesn't even know what he means. Maybe not even Taemin fully understands the language of his own thoughts, and the messages from his brain to his mouth get translated slightly differently each time.

“Why are you here? Why me?” Jinki asks again, exasperatedly, a week later. It's mostly rhetorical, mostly just annoyance needing to find a voice, but Taemin answers as if it were a serious question, although his answer is different from last time's.

“There's never any pressure here,” he says, earnest, after a moment's consideration. “I feel like I can almost be normal here.”

Jinki wishes too that Taemin could lead a normal life.

“You should be whoever you want,” he tells him. They both know that this is only superficial advice, that Taemin could never afford, or be allowed, that kind of freedom.

Taemin doesn't contradict him, though—or at least not in words; but when he replies, “Yes, I think I will,” his smile is sad, and his eyes wistful, and Jinki thinks he's thinking the same thing as Taemin when he dreams of a world where they were both normal from the start.

 

 

Taemin's crying. He flings himself blindly into Jinki's apartment. Jinki looks up, startled, from his textbook, and Taemin barrels into him. Jinki's caught off guard, and Taemin's aim is a little off, so he ends up standing there awkwardly for a moment, holding Taemin's forearms a little away from himself. Then, slowly, unsure if he's even allowed, he lets go, wraps his arms around Taemin, stroking his back and his hair and murmuring into the top of Taemin's soft brown head.

“Taemin,” he says, pulling up the warm, smooth voice he used to use. “Taem, Taem—it's going to be okay. Don't worry about anything right now.”

Taemin cries until Jinki's feet ache from standing in one position for so long. Taemin's tired too; he's sagging, slightly, weight pulling down on Jinki, and Jinki thinks vaguely of sitting down only he can't, because Taemin needs him.

So he waits until Taemin's shoulders have almost stopped shaking, until Taemin's grip on him loosens so that he's only cradling Taemin in his arms instead of being squeezed and pulled on.

“What happened?” he asks, soft as he can.

“I hate it,” says Taemin, almost a whisper. “It's,” he says, and then his voice breaks and he has to start again. “It's my family, my father, and my brother, always—I hate them.” He sniffles. “I think they hate me.” A pause, and then, “I hate it,” he says again. “Being told what to do, being looked down on by them. Failing them. Being a failure all the time.”

“Oh Taem,” says Jinki. He tightens his hand into a fist against the nape of Taemin's neck, and imagines driving that fist into the gut of Taemin's father, wants to beat him because fathers are supposed to love their sons, because fathers are supposed to see their sons differently than the men they employ. He wants to tell Taemin he's not a failure, that he's never failed, not by Jinki's book, but he's not sure if it'll help or just make things worse; it's hard to know what will cheer another human being up, Jinki muses sadly.

Taemin's hands tighten for a moment in Jinki's shirt, and then he lets go, straightens up, steps back. “Sorry,” he says, wiping at his face with the back of his hand. “I—I didn't know where else to go.”

His hair is mussed; little dyed wisps are flying all over. Jinki smooths one down with his hand. Taemin jerks a little, but then submits to the petting.

“It's okay,” Jinki says. “I'm glad you came here. You know you can always come here.”

Taemin looks at his feet for a minute. “Sorry,” he says, again. He looks toward the window. The light coming in is a dull orangey-yellow—the rusty streetlamp outside glowing through the dark. “It's late; I'll go.”

“Are you going to be all right?”

“Yeah,” says Taemin. “I'll be fine. Thanks.” He heads toward the door, and Jinki follows him.

Taemin hesitates with his hand on the doorknob.

“I'm sorry,” he blurts suddenly, turning back toward Jinki. “I'm sorry, I just—can I stay here tonight? I think—I just don't want to be alone after all.”

He looks near tears again. “Of course,” says Jinki. “Of course you can stay.”

 

 

Taemin falls asleep with his head pillowed in the crook of Jinki's arm. Jinki watches the patterns of shadows shifting over Taemin features as his face contorts with the imagined burdens of dreams. He smoothes away the creases marring Taemin's brow with the thumb of his free hand and wonders if this eases the pain, even a little.

Eventually, Jinki falls asleep too, fingers curled in the wispy locks of Taemin's hair where they trail against his collarbone. When he wakes up, bars of light streak through the blinds to stripe across his bed, which is empty but for him. There's no sign of Taemin, save that the sheets are perhaps more wrinkled than usual. Jinki sits up in bed, listening, but the apartment is silent, no padding footsteps or plates clattering from the kitchen. He calls out anyway: “Taemin,” and his voice rings out clear and unnaturally loud, strange to his own ears.

There's no answer, of course. Jinki pushes back the covers and gets out of bed. He tells himself he's not disappointed.

 

 

Jinki doesn't see or hear from Taemin for two months. For two months, it's as if Taemin had never come back into his life, or as if he had never been part of Jinki's life at all.

Then, one day, Jinki comes home from the grocery store and there's a car parked by the curb in front of Jinki's building. Which wouldn't be so odd, normally, but this car is dark and sleek and black as night, even the windows, and completely out of sorts considering the area Jinki lives in, considering that most of his neighbors can't even afford to buy cars, let alone one as imposing as this.

Jinki's first thought is _Taemin_. He starts up the stairs, taking the steps two at a time, and then stops on the landing between the second and third floors. Because Taemin wouldn't draw attention to himself like this, wouldn't give away the one place no one knows about by parking a huge dark car on the street, a neon sign declaring his whereabouts.

Neither would Taemin tell anyone who _would_ where Jinki lives, so something is definitely wrong. Jinki lets go of the rustling plastic bags so that he can back down the steps quietly, but it's too late; a dark-suited man leans out over the railing of the landing above and spots him. The man lets out a yell, and another comes over and sees Jinki as well. Jinki starts running, but he's not fast enough; by the time he bounces down the last two steps to the ground floor, the two men have caught up to him. They catch him by the arms, and Jinki lets himself go limp; each of the men could easily weigh twice as much as him, and he knows it's no use to struggle.

They drag him into his own apartment, deposit him on the floor in front of the sofa, where a middle-aged man is sitting—or lounging, more like, every inch of his posture and every fiber of his expensive tailored clothing indicating that he holds a position of power.

“So you're the one,” says the man, voice deep and commanding. Jinki blinks, and the man elaborates, “The one my son's been playing around with these past few months.”

“Oh,” says Jinki, only the sound doesn't quite make it out of his throat, so he ends up gaping with his mouth in a round “o” instead.

“He's always been a bit of a loose cannon,” says Taemin's father. He sits back and crosses one leg over the other. “We've let him do what he wants, mostly. We didn't say anything when he dreamed up his little boy band, or frittered away all his time on dancing and singing, or later, after he fled the country, when he wasted all those years playing around.” His lip curls up in displeasure. Then he shakes it away with a slight jerk of his head and continues. “We let him do whatever he wanted, at first because he took care of his responsibilities as well, and then because we thought he would do better later on if we gave him a break during his little teenage rebellions.”

“Sir?” asks Jinki when Taemin's father stops again.

“It's time for him to grow up now. No more messing around with—with _civilians_ —” as if it were a dirty word, “—or free rein over his recreational habits.” The man stops here and looks straight at Jinki. “Three billion won,” he says. “Make Taemin cut short his feelings for you and it's yours.”

“You're wrong,” says Jinki, and then coughs sheepishly and adds, “Sir.” He folds his hands into the pockets of his jacket, looks down at his feet. “Taemin doesn't—I'm not anything to him. I'm just—I'm just a toy to him, and one that he's discarded already; I haven't seen him in weeks.”

Taemin's father lets out a bark of laughter, sharp and humorless. “I am an important man,” he says. “Do you really think I would be here talking to you if I didn't think you posed a serious threat to my son's future?”

Jinki looks up at that, eyes wide. He doesn't know what to say, and a minute passes in silence.

“Fine,” Taemin's father says then. “Play dumb if you will.” He puts his sunglasses back on and stands up; Jinki is surprised to see that Mr. Lee is several inches shorter than him, stocky frame nothing like his son's. He beckons to his underlings, and the four men move into a stiff formation around him.

“My offer still stands,” says Taemin's father. “I know that you will make the right choice.” He heads for the door, and his black-suited bodyguards follow. One of them hands Jinki a business card before leaving, plain white with an embossed phone number on one side and nothing else.

 

 

He doesn't tell Taemin. At first because there is no Taemin to tell, but a few days later, Taemin reappears, acting as if nothing's amiss, as if he hadn't just fallen off the face of Jinki's earth for two months, and Jinki still doesn't tell him. There's no need, he thinks, since he has no intention of taking the bribe.

Everything goes back to normal—or as normal as things ever were for them. Taemin drops by unexpectedly at random intervals, and they order takeout or watch movies or just talk. Taemin likes hearing about Jinki's life—Jinki's theory is that Taemin likes the normalcy of it, that he lives vicariously through Jinki's average, commoner's life.

There are good days and bad days.

A good day: Taemin appears out of a shaded alley while Jinki's walking home from campus, and tugs on his hand with a smile playing about his lips until Jinki, laughing and not knowing why, follows him. They wind up in front of a tiny, ancient movie theater in a part of town Jinki's never been to. Taemin insists on seeing a movie, and Jinki, helpless as always against Taemin's charms, agrees.

They sit in the dark as the movie reel clicks overhead, dust swirling almost ethereally in the single beam of light. The image on the screen is cracked and grainy, but it doesn't matter, since Taemin seems to be more interested in throwing popcorn at the backs of the heads of the only other people in the theater, a middle-aged couple sitting two rows ahead of them. Jinki, as always, is aware only of Taemin, and pays more attention to him than to the story playing out onscreen.

Another good day: Jinki's studying, and too busy to entertain Taemin when the other shows up out of the blue again, and tells Taemin so. Taemin doesn't seem to mind, and entertains himself instead, with a pack of red licorice that he bites into different lengths and uses to spell out messages to Jinki on the tabletop. Jinki grins at some despite himself, and Taemin, feeling cheered, starts bending the pieces to make pictures as well.

After a while, Jinki tells him that he really does need to concentrate now, and stops looking up at the changing words and pictures Taemin sets on the table in front of him. Taemin pouts—Jinki can practically _feel_ it by now, and after a few minutes, gets up from the chair opposite the table and disappears. Jinki flips a few pages in his textbook, scribbles in his notebook, and doesn't notice Taemin's back until he's interrupted, quite abruptly, by the sweet smell of candy, much too close to his nose.

Jinki pulls the two licorice segments from his nostrils and scrambles to his feet, shouting and chasing after Taemin, who sprints around the room, dodging and laughing helplessly. Jinki tries to stay mad, he really does—but Taemin's good moods are always infectious—or at least, have always been so to him—and soon he finds himself laughing just as hard as Taemin, who's given up running away and is just curled, giggling, on the couch next to an exhausted but happy Jinki.

And the bad days: Taemin bursting through the door exhausted and in low spirits, and collapsing into Jinki's bed, asleep in minutes. Jinki sits beside him with his laptop propped up in his lap and, when Taemin whimpers softly in his sleep, brow forming a troubled crease, strokes his hair until he quiets again, until his face relaxes once more into peaceful dreaming.

Or Taemin looking for refuge from increasingly frequent fights with his father, refusing to go into detail and growing crabby when Jinki pries. Taemin sits in a sulk at the kitchen table then, bratty and stubborn and glaring at anything and everything. Jinki throws his hands up, frustrated — “I don't know what you want from me!” — and retreats to the bedroom, slamming the door shut. He doesn't come out until he's heard Taemin shuffle to the front door and leave, an hour later.

There are also days Jinki doesn't know whether to classify as good or bad—days that tear at his heart but fill it with joy at the same time. Taemin, coming in out of the rain, dripping and looking smaller and more lost than Jinki has ever seen him, and later, sitting on the couch slowly growing warm again as he lets Jinki towel his hair dry. Taemin, joking and happy until he gets a text that turns his grin to a feral, predatory expression, holding himself as an entirely different person as he stalks out of the apartment. Taemin, his head in Jinki's lap, murmuring, “Thank you for being my friend. I don't have very many.”

Jinki clenches his teeth then. Taemin looks up, lashes fluttering, at the sudden tension in Jinki's body, and Jinki forces himself to relax, to smile soothingly down at him and respond.

But in his mind, Jinki thinks, t _his is why I can't let you go_. _This is why I can't give you up._ And he strengthens his resolve to continue seeing Taemin, keep letting this boy into his life, despite all that's working against them.

 

 

Jinki's never had a problem walking down the small, shady alley he takes sometimes as a shortcut home from school. It looks sketchy, sure, but it's usually empty, and on the few occasions when there have been people sharing the narrow space with Jinki, they've always ignored him, and he them.

Maybe he was naïve though, he thinks now, as an unfamiliar voice calls out his name: “Lee Jinki,” and Jinki glances over to his right in surprise.

It's not hard to guess who the young man leaning against the wall is. He's shorter than Taemin, and more muscular, but the family resemblance is impossible to miss.

Taemin's brother catches the recognition in Jinki's eyes and smiles.

He introduces himself with a nod. “Lee Taesun,” he says, and then, “I'm guessing you've heard of me from my little brother.”

Jinki nods, dumbly, remembering the admiration with which Taemin had once spoken of his brother, and the way admiration had turned to jealousy, then bitter resentment as the years went by.

Taesun tosses something up into the air; it spins over and over, glittering in the twilight, and then Taesun catches it again by the handle. It's a knife, Jinki realizes, the silver blade curved threateningly as it narrows towards the tip. Jinki steps back, presses himself against the wall opposite Taesun, as far back as he can get. He thinks, briefly, of running away—but Taesun is probably a faster runner than him, and anyway, he knows where Jinki lives, and Jinki doesn't have anywhere else to go. Taesun smirks at Jinki, and Jinki knows he knows that Jinki knows this.

“I have a message,” Taesun says airily, making Jinki wonder if this practiced nonchalance is an inherited trait, passed down through the family. “My father would like to remind you that it's been three weeks since his proposition for you.” Taesun tosses his knife up again, then catches it and looks Jinki straight in the eye. “What is your response?”

Jinki stares, at a loss for words. He licks his suddenly dry lips. “I,” he says. The memory of Taemin smiling sunnily at him, threading his arm around Jinki's, floods his mind. “I can't,” he says, finally.

Taesun shakes his head. “I thought you were smarter than that,” he says. “I really didn't want to have to do this the hard way.”

Jinki blinks, and suddenly Taesun is in front of him, and there is the cold bite of metal pressed against his adam's apple. He swallows, involuntarily, and the blade of Taesun's knife digs dangerously into his skin, not quite deep enough to cut, but enough to warn that it can.

This time, when Taesun speaks, all the airiness is gone from his voice, and he is suddenly serious, business-like almost, but no businessman would have need of such vicious undertones. “Three more weeks,” he snarls in Jinki's ear. “That's all you get. You know what we want you to do. Start a fight, make him hate you, disappear to where he can't find you—whatever it takes; just get rid of him. Or we'll get rid of you.”

This last sentiment is punctuated with a biting pressure of the knife against Jinki's throat. Jinki tips his head back, grinding against the bricks behind him in a futile effort to get away. He breathes in sharply through his nose—and then Taesun takes the knife away slips it into a sheath inside his jacket. He steps back and walks away, hands in his pockets.

“You'll find the money in your account once we're satisfied that Taemin's free of distractions,” Taemin's brother calls over his shoulder.

Jinki is left breathing hard, rubbing at the skin of his throat. He slumps into a crouch and presses his forehead against his knee.

“Fuck,” he breathes. There is no one around to hear him.

 

 

Taemin is in a domestic mood when he visits Jinki three days later. He even knocks rather than simply entering, and even though Jinki goes to open the door with swirling thoughts of telling Taemin to leave, or somehow starting a fight like Taesun had said, they all flee once he sees Taemin's face, smiling cheerfully, honestly, for once.

“I want to watch a movie,” Taemin tells him right away, even before he pushes inside and kicks off his shoes. “Stay in and order takeout, like normal people.”

“Oh,” says Jinki. He shuts the door again behind Taemin. “Okay.”

They agree on Chinese food, and Taemin goes to search for the takeout menus. Jinki rifles through the DVDs on the shelf a while longer and finally gives up and takes five over to Taemin in the kitchen, intent on making him choose.

“So I was thinking maybe _The Ring_ , since you like horror movies,” he says, studying the back of the DVD cases, “but then there's this one, which is really cute, and also one of my friends was saying—”

“Where did you get this?”

Taemin's voice is strange and tight; Jinki looks up to see him holding a small white rectangle of paper: the business card with his father's phone number printed on it. Jinki's mouth opens to answer, but he's not sure what to say, and no words come out.

“My father came here, didn't he,” says Taemin, quiet, and it's not a question. He purses his lips; in four years of living together and the past several months of Taemin coming in and out of his life without warning, Jinki has never seen him like this, soft and serious and so angry the knuckles of his thumb and forefinger are turning white with the effort of pinching the business card between them.

“Taemin,” says Jinki, astonished at the dark expression on the other's face. Taemin smacks the business card back down on the counter, presses it down with his palm for a moment, then takes a step towards Jinki.

“What did he say?” he asks. And then, without waiting for an answer, “Did he threaten you?” He steps forward again, and his voice rises. “Did he _hurt_ you?”

“No,” says Jinki, taken aback. He doesn't mention Taemin's brother holding a knife to his throat; _don't ask, don't tell_ , he thinks.

“Fuck,” says Taemin, and turns away. He walks back to the counter, braces himself against it, head lowered. Then he spins back again to glare at Jinki. Jinki steps backwards involuntarily; Taemin is never like this, never sharp and serious, always protected by layers of nonchalance, his facade against emotion.

“When was this?” Taemin asks.

“Maybe, maybe three weeks ago,” says Jinki. “Maybe a month.”

“Why didn't you tell me,” says Taemin, low and dangerous.

“You disappeared for months!” exclaims Jinki. “I hadn't seen you for almost two months when your dad showed up here, and by the time you turned up two weeks later, I—” _had already forgotten about it_ , he means to say, only at the last second he can't bring himself to tell that lie, so he snaps his mouth shut instead.

Taemin changes the subject. “What did he want, then?”

“I—he—” Jinki wonders if he should lie; but Taemin is looking more murderous by the second and Jinki has never been good at lying. He looks down as he says, “He offered me money to cut you out of my life—or, I guess, to cut myself out of yours.”

Taemin is silent for a moment. Then he pushes past Jinki and storms out of the apartment. He slams the door shut behind him. Jinki wonders how long it will be this time before Taemin comes back again.

 

 

Not long, apparently; Jinki wakes up in the middle of the night, feeling like someone's eyes are on him, and sure enough, Taemin is sitting at the foot of his bed, cross-legged. Jinki starts, sits up jerkily against his headboard.

“Taemin,” he says.

Taemin is silent for a long moment. All Jinki can see are the whites of his eyes and a slim, shadowy silhouette.

“You get that it's not your choice to make, right?” Taemin says then, soft but serious. “Whether I come or go. Whether or not I'm a part of your life.”

Jinki nods, says, “I know,” just in case Taemin can't see it.

Taemin nods too. “And it's not theirs, either,” he says. He clenches his fist in the bedcovers; Jinki can hear the rustling fabric.

“Taemin,” Jinki says with a sigh. He slides forward on the bed, knees bunching against his chest, until he's close enough to touch Taemin's sleeve, a light reassuring pressure. Taemin turns, wide eyes staring up at Jinki, and for a moment, he's a half-decade younger, face round and smooth and pretended innocence just convincing enough to make Jinki fall in love with him.

And then Taemin twists around a bit more, rests his hand on Jinki's knee for support as he leans forward, and Jinki knows Taemin isn't that that boy anymore after all, because Taemin five years ago would never have kissed him like this, would never have kissed him at all.

Jinki, on the other hand. Jinki would be lying if he said he hadn't imagined kissing Taemin, hadn't found himself turned towards Taemin and leaning forward nearly every one of the million times they stood next to each other in interviews or performances or television appearances. He cups Taemin's head in his hand, tentatively at first, not sure if he's even allowed this. Taemin pushes against him, wide hand gripping harder against Jinki's thigh, nips at Jinki's lower lip, and Jinki grows bolder at this permission. He slides his fingers up into Taemin's hair, twining and twisting and pulling until Taemin tilts his head back in a gasp.

Taemin clambers into Jinki's lap, and a minute later, Jinki's being pushed down to the sheets. He scrabbles and pushes himself up until he's lying fully on the bed, Taemin's lithe thin body following him all the way up.

Somewhere along the way Taemin stops to discard his shirt. Jinki shrugs out of the worn t-shirt and boxers he'd worn to sleep and watches, appreciative and just a little awestruck, as Taemin takes the time to pull off his fitted jeans as well.

And then Taemin's on him again, their bodies fitted together, and it feels like the culmination of everything, of everything that's happened in the past weeks, months, years since Jinki's known Taemin, since Jinki first fell for that wide-eyed boy who was more than he seemed.

There's a brief second Jinki's mind threatens to wander, threatens to remember all the reasons they shouldn't be doing this, and he pauses, keeping still except for the slight up and down of his shoulders as he pants, breath hot against the skin of Taemin's neck.

“Don't stop,” warns Taemin, trying for harsh but getting mostly breath instead. “Don't you dare stop.”

So Jinki doesn't stop, just keeps taking more and more, until he's leaning on his elbows for leverage and his hips are crashing against Taemin's, until both of them are sweat-slicked and gasping and whimpering broken words, until Taemin's fingers tangle with his and squeeze, hard, as he comes, Jinki spilling himself bare moments later.

 

 

Morning comes. Jinki opens his eyes and is filled with dread. He thinks of the now two-week deadline he has to erase Taemin from his life and buries his face in Taemin's hair. Taemin stirs, murmuring a sleepy hello, and Jinki kisses the rim of Taemin's ear, wants to whisper something like, “I love you,” or, “Never leave me.” But he doesn't say either, because he doesn't want to hear that Taemin doesn't love him back, and because he'll be the one leaving Taemin.

Instead, he just noses gently at the soft wispy strands at the side of Taemin's hair until Taemin, laughing in exasperation, rolls him over and kisses him. It's light and sweet and almost chaste, and Jinki finds himself wondering, not for the first time, how much of the playful happy Taemin is real and how much is just for show, and whether Taemin might always be like this if he hadn't grown up in the family he did.

 _It's not fair_ , Jinki thinks. He squeezes his eyes shut and wishes for a universe where they can be free to be themselves, be together, and not have pressures from all sides, not be hounded by threats and politics and dark, secret violences.

He opens his eyes. Taemin's still Taemin, Jinki's still Jinki, and he still has only fourteen days left until Taemin's family sends someone to slit Jinki's throat.

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

 

 

It's hard, too hard, to give up what he's wanted for so long and has only gotten to have for much too brief a time, but Jinki knows what he has to do. Nothing has to change, he tells himself, from the life he's been living for the past few years, the life he was living before Taemin forced his way back in. It'll just be as if Taemin had never come back from Thailand, or Europe, or wherever he was before he appeared in Jinki's apartment that night.

The card Taemin's father left is still on the kitchen counter, right where Taemin had left it. Jinki picks it up, fingers it for a moment before steeling his resolve. He dials the number printed and embossed in black, then folds the card into his pocket. The phone rings only once before a cool female voice speaks.

“Hello, please state your name and purpose,” it says.

“I—Lee Jinki, I'm calling for—for Mr. Lee,” says Jinki, slightly thrown. _Stupid_ , he thinks at himself; _it's not as if someone of that level is going to answer his own calls_.

“If you leave a message,” says the woman on the other end, “I can pass it on to him.”

Jinki pauses for a moment, then says, “Tell him I'll do it. Tell him Taemin should be coming by today, and I'll take care of it then.”

Right on cue, the door to his apartment clicks as its lock is picked, and then swings open. Jinki turns, and Taemin is toeing off his shoes in the entryway.

“I will tell him,” says the voice. “Is there anything else?”

“No,” says Jinki, eyes not leaving Taemin's. “No, that's it; thank you.” He hangs up the phone as Taemin comes through the open doorway into the kitchen.

“Who were you talking to?” Taemin asks.

Jinki ignores his question. “Taemin,” he says. “I need to talk to you.” Taemin eyes him warily, folds his arms over his chest. Jinki swallows. “I need—” his voice breaks, and he clears his throat and tries again, but his voice doesn't seem to want to cooperate. He stands there and looks at the floor, focuses just on breathing in and then out.

“I can't,” he blurts. “Everything—your family, what you do, all the violence, who you are—I thought I could deal with it, but I can't.” He takes a deep, shuddering breath. “I want you to go away,” he says. “I want you out of my life again.”

Taemin is dead silent. Jinki scuffs his feet against the worn linoleum. The compressor on the refrigerator whirs on; a motorcycle roars by outside. Then Taemin crumples in on himself suddenly, slouching against the doorframe. Jinki wants to squeeze his eyes shut, so he doesn't have to see; he wants to go to Taemin in two brisk strides, pull him close and apologize for lying. Instead, he digs his thumbnail into the bone of his other wrist and counts to ten in his mind as he waits for Taemin to say something.

Taemin straightens up. “I see what this is about,” he says, and his voice is unexpectedly clear. He takes a step forward, uncrosses his arms and hooks his thumbs into his belt loops. He's almost smiling—but the upwards tilt of his mouth is unpleasantly lopsided. “This is about my family, isn't it?” he says. “This is about the offer my dad made you.”

Jinki's eyes widen. For a moment he doesn't even know if he's still breathing.

“Fine,” Taemin says. The corners of his mouth twist downward in a sneer. “If that's the way you want it, then fine.”

“Taemin?” says Jinki, uncertainly.

“The way I see it,” Taemin continues, “you're either a coward or a whore.” Jinki starts at that, blinks twice in confusion. Taemin meets his eyes squarely as he says, “Either you're scared of my father and are bowing to his will, or you purposely lured me into bed so you could dump me afterwards and collect the money. Either way,” he concludes, “I don't want anything to do with you.”

And with that, he turns tail and pushes his way back out of Jinki's apartment and out of Jinki's life.

 

 

Jinki's an idiot. He realizes this slowly over the next twelve days. It's a short time—less than two weeks even, a short time to be without Taemin considering Jinki's spent the last three years not knowing where Taemin was. And yet, it feels unbearably long. Jinki misses Taemin, and he knew he would, he'd expected to, but he hadn't expected to wake up in the mornings barely registering the light, only knowing that something must have clawed out his heart during the night, because what else could this empty place in him be?

It's not just Taemin's absence. It's not just Taemin leaving. It's that Jinki was the one who'd pushed him away. All this time, he'd wanted Taemin more than anything in the world, and just when he finally had him, he'd ruined everything, and it wasn't anyone's fault but his own.

Why had he been so afraid? Jinki forgets more of the reasons why every day after Taemin left. He'd wanted to make things easier for the both of them, wanted Taemin's family to treat him better, and wanted to avoid getting himself killed. But Taemin had been so furious when he'd figured out what Jinki was doing, and as for the other thing—now that Taemin is gone, Jinki realizes it doesn't matter what Taemin's family does to him, as long as it means he can have one day, one hour, one second more with Taemin.

But Taemin's gone, and it's too late now for those kinds of thoughts.

 

 

It's not too late.

That's what Jinki thinks when he sees Taemin buying food from a street-side vendor in the early evening.

“Taemin,” he says before he can fully think it through. Taemin turns at the sound of his name. His eyes narrow when he sees Jinki, face completely closing itself off. He takes his food in its little plastic baggy and slides a crumpled bill across the counter, then turns and leaves without saying anything, without even sparing Jinki a second look.

Jinki follows him. Taemin walks briskly, taking twists and turns through the streets. Jinki jogs to catch up, and Taemin quickens his pace even more, walks down smaller and smaller alleys, taking Jinki through secret corners of the city he's never even known existed.

“Taemin,” Jinki says as he closes the distance between them, and grabs at Taemin's arm. Taemin's face twists nastily; then he steels his expression, smoothing away the creases in his brow by force. He doesn't say anything, just pulls his arm away from Jinki, puts his hands in his pockets, and strolls away again.

Jinki follows him. “Taemin,” he says again. “I was wrong,” he says. “I just thought we'd be better off—that things would be easier for you if I broke things off with you.” Taemin continues to ignore him, except for a slight quickening of his pace. Jinki broadens his strides as well to keep up. “It wasn't about the money,” he says. “It was never about the money; I don't care about that.” Taemin doesn't even look at him, so Jinki reaches out for him again.

“Taemin—”

Taemin turns then, turns around, shakes Jinki's hand from his shoulder, and punches Jinki in the face, all in one smooth, fluid motion. Jinki swears and stumbles, reaches to clutch at his nose, feel if it's broken, but Taemin doesn't let him, grabs Jinki's shirt collar and pushes him up against the alley wall before Jinki can even bring his hand up. It's not that skinny, lithe Taemin is stronger than Jinki, but he's stronger than he looks, and with the added element of surprise, that's enough to overpower Jinki.

He kisses Jinki. Jinki's head slams back into brick from the force of it; the noise of pain he makes is lost into Taemin's mouth.

“Taemin, what,” says Jinki, and then doesn't know the words for the question he means to ask.

“Don't you know?” asks Taemin. There's a pleading note to his voice, Jinki thinks, something he's never heard from Taemin, cheerily teasing Taemin, sarcastically sinister Taemin. But Jinki's not sure what it is Taemin wants so badly for him to know, so he doesn't say anything. “Never mind,” says Taemin, ending on a sigh. He steps away; Jinki thinks for a moment he's going to turn and leave, but instead he hooks a finger through Jinki's belt loop, pulls him along.

“Let's go,” he says, and Jinki thinks he should ask where, but the truth is he'd follow Taemin anywhere, always.

 

 

“I love you,” Jinki says, later.

“Yes,” replies Taemin, and arches up, and digs blunt nails into Jinki's arms.

 

 

He wakes up and doesn't know why. It's dark but for the faintly illuminated digits on his alarm clock: 3:44AM, they read. Taemin is asleep beside him, face smoothed out into a peaceful expression he rarely carries while awake. Jinki watches him for a few moments; fondness twists at his heart, and he rests a hand on Taemin's shoulder. It rises and falls with Taemin's slow, deep breaths.

Then, abruptly, Jinki becomes aware of the reason for his sudden awakening: there's someone in the apartment. He hears, just barely, low murmurs in living room, the soft rustling sounds of feet brushing along carpet. He sits up, shakes Taemin awake—but before he can rouse Taemin, the door to the bedroom is flung open, and in the same instant, the hall light flickers on. Jinki blinks against the brightness, shields his eyes, but can only make out the backlit silhouettes of three figures.

Taemin stirs, blinks blearily and mumbles something unintelligible against Jinki's side. The sound seems to trigger the men in the doorway: they move forward in broad strides—one hits Jinki in the head, hard, and then again. Jinki barely registers the shadowy figure of another man grabbing for a Taemin who is suddenly alert as well before he's gone, mind swirling into dark oblivion.

 

 

He wakes up with his hands tied behind his back; the coarse texture of the rope against the tender skin of his wrists is the first thing he registers. He twists and turns them, uselessly, and then blinks and coughs and clears his dry throat.

“Welcome to our humble abode,” comes a voice. Jinki lifts his head and when his vision focuses, Lee Taesun is sitting in front of him. He stands as Jinki looks around, takes in his surroundings. “Well,” Taesun amends his earlier statement, “our humble headquarters, anyway.”

“Why,” starts Jinki, then thinks of a more pressing question. “Where's Taemin?”

Taesun ignores him. “You took our money and then went back on your word,” he says. “That constitutes stealing, you know.”

“The money's still there,” says Jinki. “You can have it back; I haven't touched it.”

Taesun opens his mouth to laugh, only it's not Taesun's laugh that Jinki hears. The voice he hears is deeper, gruffer, and Jinki turns to see Taemin's father coming into the room. Taesun immediately stands up straighter, face going professional in an instant.

“Smart boy like you should know better than that,” says Taemin's father. “You should know that's not how it works.”

And he does know, Jinki supposes, although he'd tried hard to pretend he didn't. Still, he shows no expression on his face, no sign of giving in, of weakness. He stands his ground, or as well as he can when he's tied to a rickety wooden chair.

“I ought to kill you for your little antics.” Jinki gulps, but doesn't respond. His eyes track the movements of the two men standing around him as the older gestures to his son, who then moves forward, closer to Jinki.

“Or perhaps I'll have Taesun knock some sense into you first,” Taemin's father says. Jinki feels his breath come faster, feels himself start to panic as Taesun moves closer still. Jinki catches the glint of Taesun's blade in his belt; the memory of the cold steel biting into the flesh of his throat bursts fresh in his mind, and he presses himself back into the chair.

Taesun doesn't go for the knife, though—not yet. He cracks his knuckles against the palm of his left hand, then pulls his fist back to strike. Jinki squeezes his eyes shut, head instinctively turning away from the impending blow—but it never comes. Instead, Taemin's father laughs again, and Jinki opens his eyes to see him holding up a hand, stopping Taesun.

“But that would be too easy now, wouldn't it?” he says, false amusement cold in his eyes. He smirks, the expression odd on his stodgy, square face. “No,” he's saying now, “I know what gets to people like you.”

There's a commotion then, coming from behind Jinki, as the door is wrenched open and someone is dragged in by a pair of heavy-set men, protests muffled behind one gargantuan hand.

“Taemin,” Jinki breathes. Taemin looks at him, eyes wild, but not in that familiar savage way—he looks terrified, and Jinki feels something in his chest clench. He wants to go to Taemin, but Taesun holds him back as soon as he twitches forward, places a hand on Jinki's chest and presses him bodily back against the blade of his trusty knife, warning. Jinki stills, helpless.

Taemin's father nods at the two men holding Taemin by the arms. The one with a hand over his mouth lets go; Taemin tries to say something, Jinki thinks, but he barely has time to breathe in before it forms a fist and drives into his stomach, hard, and any words that might have formed disappear in a whoosh of exhaled breath. Jinki sucks in a breath. The other man, who's wearing his long hair back in a ponytail, aims a kick at the back of Taemin's knees, and Taemin bends his legs reflexively, crumpling to the floor. The long-haired man continues kicking him, in the ribs now, over and over, and Jinki cries out, his voice mixing with Taemin's yelps of pain.

“Tell them to stop,” Jinki pleads, turning his head to look at Taemin's father. The man stares back, almost but not quite expressionless; Jinki thinks he sees, horrifyingly, a hint of satisfaction on written over his features. “How can you do this?” asks Jinki. “He's your son!”

“All the more reason he must be taught to obey,” says Taemin's father.

Jinki stares for a moment, disbelieving, and then jerks forward again. “Hey,” Taesun barks, and then Jinki has to sit back again, because there's the familiar feel of Taesun's sharp-edged knife pressing into the skin of his throat.

Taemin's cries have died down to whimpers by now. Jinki blinks away the tears in his eyes to see that Taemin's white shirt has been stained bloody, and realizes that they must have broken ribs, that the bone must have pierced skin. “Taemin,” he says again, a low moan.

“Do you get it now?” Taemin's father says, and Jinki turns his eyes back to him. “There is a price to pay for disrespect,” the man continues. “No one crosses us. Do you get that now?”

“I won't do it again,” Jinki swears. “I'll go away, I'll leave Taemin alone—just call them off—just tell them to stop.”

Taemin's father looks pleased, but he doesn't do anything, doesn't say a word or lift a finger to stop the thugs beating his son to a pulp. Jinki curses and turns back to Taemin, who is now curling in on himself, a sobbing wreck on the floor. One of the men nudges him in the side with his foot, rolls him over onto his back. One of Taemin's arms flops bonelessly to the floor, fingers a loose curl at his side. The man raises one heavily booted foot; Jinki realizes what he is about to do a split second before he does it.

The sickening crunch is almost drowned out by Taemin's scream. Jinki shouts, then falls to his knees, sobbing, dissolving into incoherent begging. The foot presses down ruthlessly, twisting, grinding the already broken bones of Taemin's hand into the ground. Taemin screams again, muffled; he's biting his lip against the pain, Jinki realizes, and pleads harder. “Stop it, please, let him go, he's your son,” he says in one long babble, but it's not until the the man has lifted his foot and stomped down once more on Taemin's twisted fingers that Taemin's father clears his throat and holds up a hand.

“All right, that's enough,” he says. It's matter-of-fact and unfeeling—no sign of displeasure at how far his henchmen have gone, nor any hint of remorse for his son. He gestures at his underlings when they look over at him, flicks his fingers in the universal sign of dismissal, and they exit the room without a word.

Taemin's father gestures again, this time at his elder son. “Get him out of my sight,” he says, nodding at Jinki. “And the worthless brat, as well. I trust they've learned their lesson this time.”

Taesun cuts the ropes binding Jinki's hands with one swift swing of his knife and hauls Jinki up by the back of his collar. Jinki is too stunned to fight it, too stunned even to stay steady on his feet, and Taesun half drags him out of the and down the hall. Jinki has almost no recollection of making it back up the basement stairs and to the door, but suddenly he finds himself being thrown out into the fading sunlight, surrounded by the oblivious chirping of crickets, the warm and humid air doing nothing to dry his tear-streaked cheeks.

“Better keep your word,” says Taesun. His voice is stern, but when Jinki turns to look back at him, a soft and dangerous smile is playing about his lips. “Who knows what'll happen next time you decide you can't stay away.” He cocks an eyebrow meaningfully, then steps forward, knife pressing once again against Jinki's back, and ushers Jinki into the waiting car. He shuts the door, then leans down to peer at Jinki through the open window as he says, “Bye now.” He waves. “Have a safe trip!”

The window rolls up then, dark tint gradually obscuring Taesun's face from view, and the car pulls away.

 

 

He goes back to his apartment. He goes to class. He finishes school, gets his degree. He serves his mandatory time in the military. He moves back in with his parents while he finds a job. Then, when he finds one, he moves into an apartment a couple of blocks from the company building, a nice one, nicer than the worn-down place he had been living in before.

He would like to be able to say that he forgets Taemin, but he could never forget Taemin.

It's almost doable during the day; Jinki works and types things up on the computer and attends meetings and maybe even sucks up to his boss, turning on charm that he thought he had lost long ago, and some days, the thought of Taemin doesn't even cross his mind. Then he goes home, maybe picks up something to eat on the way, and then—and then.

It's not even the same apartment as before, but Jinki sits down to eat, takes out the paper cartons of food and sinks his chopsticks in, and he sits at the table and looks at the kitchen counter and remembers Taemin, leaning jauntily against the counter and looking up playfully through his bangs, beckoning with only his eyes. Jinki throws away the empty cartons and disposable chopsticks when he's done eating, and watches TV and thinks of Taemin, leaning against him on a different couch, years ago. He showers and remembers Taemin, hair dripping wet, sleek against the curve of his neck. Gets in bed and turns off the lights, and can almost feel the ghost of a memory, a warm weight sharing the blankets, fingers threaded through his own.

Almost. But that's it. Only ever the ghost of fingers against his palm. The Taemin in his memory is only ever a ghost.

He actually does see Taemin—just once.

He hears Taemin's voice first, and thinks he's going crazy, thinks, _It's finally happening; I'm finally losing it_. He blinks and clears his throat and pulls out a chair at the conference table, takes a seat between two well-groomed men in gray tweed suits.

Then there's a clatter, loud and startling against the soft chatter of businessmen conversing amongst themselves before the start of the meeting. Everyone turns their heads toward the noise, and Jinki looks too.

And he blinks and shakes his head, looks away and then back again; but he still sees the same thing.

Taemin's standing in the hallway just outside the open door of the meeting room. His hair is cut shorter than Jinki remembers, hands clasped loosely around the edge of the binder he'd just dropped and then scrambled to pick up. Taemin's there, staring at Jinki as if seeing a ghost.

Jinki half-stands. _Taemin_ , he thinks, and wants to cross the room in four brisk, easy strides, wants to grab Taemin's arm or cup his face in his hands, because after so long he's not sure that Taemin was even ever really _real_.

And then he sees the way Taemin's knuckles bell awkwardly in the fingers of his right hand, how he grips his binder with his left hand instead, leaving the right pressed gently flat against the cover instead of holding, how the fingers dangle crookedly, bent at angles that can't be quite natural, and Jinki sits down again. He swallows. The front-desk secretary, guiding Taemin through the corridor, murmurs something to Taemin, a softly lilting question, and touches his elbow. Taemin shakes himself slightly, then smiles at her, seamless and perfect. Jinki finds that his breath stutters a little when he inhales and turns back to face forward in his seat. He smoothes down the edges of his papers and doesn't listen to any of the thousand thoughts hurtling through his head.

Taemin is gone by the time Jinki looks up again. Later, Jinki wanders down the halls, telling himself he's just walking, not looking for Taemin, even though he knows it's a lie. It doesn't matter anyway; Taemin must have left already; he's nowhere to be found.

 

 

On his thirtieth birthday, Jinki's expecting to spend a quiet night at home alone. His parents had already visited and celebrated with him the weekend prior, and these days, he has few friends left, and even fewer who would take him out for his birthday, who even remember what day he was born on.

Instead, as he's settling down with a bottle of beer after dinner, the doorbell rings, and he opens the door to someone he hasn't seen in years.

Jinki stares at the smirking figure on his doorstep. Then: “I haven't done anything,” he blurts. “I haven't contacted him, I haven't heard from him, I haven't spoken to him—so please don't—” _please don't hurt him_ , he means to say, but rough laughter cuts him off.

“I know all that already,” says Lee Taesun. He gestures for Jinki to let him in, and Jinki steps back, somewhat dumbfounded.

Taesun looks around, peers into the kitchen, then down the hall, and finally stops in the living room, leaning, all casual nonchalance, against the back of the couch. “Nice place,” he says. “Better than the last, for sure.”

Jinki follows nervously, stands a couple of yards away, arms stiff at his sides. “What,” he says, and then has to swallow past his suddenly dry throat. “What do you want?”

Taesun puts his hands in his pockets, then looks up at Jinki, expression becoming serious. “My father had a stroke,” he says.

“Oh,” says Jinki, after a beat. He wonders if he should offer condolences, but can't quite bring himself to say the words when he thinks of the gruff, stout man who threatened him in his apartment and ordered his underlings to beat his own son to within an inch of his life. He keeps quiet instead.

“He's stable for now,” Taesun continues, “but we all know it's only a matter of time before the old man is out of the game for good.” Taesun stands then, takes his hands out of his pockets, looks Jinki straight in the eye.

“Here's the thing,” he says. “All that shit that went down—that was because Dad wanted Taemin to stop playing around and get serious about the family business. And it worked. Too well, actually. Turns out the little shit is actually really good at the business side of things when he puts his mind to it. Whereas Dad still sees me as just a grunt, someone who can take care of the dirty work for him.” Taesun shifts his weight from one leg to the other. “Dad's choosing an heir soon. Someone to be the head after he retires. I want it to be me. But right now it's looking like it's going to be Taem.”

Jinki's heart is pounding. He hasn't seen Taemin's father for years, but suddenly his mind is filled with images of Taemin becoming as cruel and imposing as that man. He shakes his head a little to clear it.

Taemin's brother continues. “Taemin doesn't even want this life—whether he knows that or not. And you don't want this life for him, do you?”

Jinki swallows hard. “What are you saying,” he says.

Taesun shrugs one shoulder, up, then down. “Our father's too weak now to be able to do anything to either of you,” he says. “The only thing he'd be able to do is disown Taemin, give someone else the position he's about to get. The position I want.” Jinki stares. “I'm saying,” Taesun says, “that if you still want Taemin, now's the time.”

Jinki wants to react, but he's frozen in place, and anyway he doesn't know what to think, what to feel. He stands there, and Taesun pulls a slip of paper from his pocket, sets it on the coffee table before showing himself out of the apartment, giving Jinki a little nod farewell over his shoulder before the door shuts.

Jinki sits heavily on the couch. He reaches out, hand trembling, for the paper Taesun had left; on it is a phone number and an address, and scrawled below, the words _Lee Taemin_.

 

 

Maybe it's a trap. Maybe they weren't satisfied with how they left things five years ago, so they want to lure Jinki in again, test him, and when he shows up to find Taemin, torture them both and kill him.

But Jinki can't shake the niggling thought that maybe, maybe it's real. Maybe Taesun's telling the truth, maybe their father really is indisposed and powerless to hurt them, and maybe Taemin—

Maybe Taemin will still want him too.

So he goes to the address on the paper. It takes him a few days to pluck up the nerve, but then he's going, rides the train three stops, then walks three blocks east and one north, matching the door numbers with the one he's memorized by now, until he gets to the right house.

Jinki rings the doorbell and waits. It's weird, he thinks; he'd always thought that Taemin would live in a huge mansion, or perhaps some dark hideout. He'd never thought of Taemin as living in a perfectly normal townhouse on a perfectly normal street in a perfectly normal part of town.

Jinki hears footsteps approaching from behind the door, and then there's a pause, and a muffled sound that sounds a lot like someone saying, “Fuck.” Another moment passes before the door is pulled open.

Taemin's standing there, looking grim, or anyway annoyed. He crosses his arms across his chest. “What are you doing here,” he says, flatly.

“I—” says Jinki, and then gets distracted by the way Taemin's hair—black now—is falling into his eyes, and by the dark smudges of color and exhaustion and the five years that have passed since he was last this close to Taemin beneath them.

Taemin huffs impatiently. “Never mind,” he says, harsher than Jinki remembers. “Come in before someone sees you.” He pushes the door open wider, just a bit, just enough for Jinki to slip past. Jinki's breath catches in his throat, just the tiniest hitch, as he's pushed up against Taemin for a moment; and then he's through, he's into the open space of Taemin's home, and Taemin's behind him, shutting and locking and latching the door. Jinki watches Taemin to see if he had any hint of the same reaction at being pressed up against Jinki—but Taemin's impassive, face betraying nothing.

Taemin leans against the wall and crosses his arms over his chest. The black of the silk button-up he's wearing is starkly dark before the white paint. The blinds of the living room window are closed, and the room is dim but for the streaks of light that enter through the vertical gaps at the edges, golden light that falls over Taemin's face. Jinki stares at his cheekbones, stares at the hollows that have grown under them in the five years they've been apart.

“Well?” says Taemin.

“Oh,” says Jinki. “I. I. How have you been?”

Taemin sighs. It's an irritated sound, and Jinki winces at himself. “You shouldn't be here,” Taemin tells him.

“I heard about your father,” Jinki blurts. Taemin starts back a little, but then composes himself, raises a cool eyebrow. “And I just thought,” Jinki continues, “that it's okay now, that it'd be safe for me to come find you, and see...” He trails off. Taemin just keeps staring at him, expressionless. Jinki fidgets for a moment, but Taemin doesn't say anything.

“I'm sorry,” says Jinki, and turns to go. “I shouldn't have come here—I shouldn't have expected—I'll go.”

Taemin's fingers suddenly pressing into his wrist stop him. Jinki looks at him in surprise. Taemin's features are contorting; he opens and then closes his mouth as if not trusting himself enough to speak. “Don't,” he says, finally. “You don't have to leave. I don't want you to.”

Jinki takes a step towards Taemin, and then another step closer, experimentally. Taemin's grip on his wrist loosens somewhat; Jinki pulls his hand free, just enough to slip his fingers down and hold Taemin's hand in his own. It's the one that was broken, stomped on; the bones healed knobby and crooked, long digits made inelegant by the injury. “Taemin,” he says.

Taemin avoids his eyes, lashes fluttering down as he looks away. “I never told you,” he says, “not really. I mean, I tried, once, but.” He breaks off, face wrinkling uncomfortably again.

“Do you remember,” he says after a moment, “that time you caught me washing blood off myself in your kitchen? Do you remember what I said to you then?”

Jinki remembers. I don't love you; I've never cared about you; not those words exactly, but that was the gist of it. He nods.

Taemin takes a deep breath. “I lied,” he says.

Jinki is confused for a moment, and then the implication dawns on him, his eyes widening with the realization.

“Not just to you,” Taemin continues. “To myself too. I didn't want those feelings, so I told myself they weren't there, they weren't real. But it never really worked, not really, and I stopped lying to myself when you left, when they broke my hand.” He pauses, swallows. Jinki watches the bobbing of his throat.

“The truth is,” Taemin says, “I—”

Jinki kisses him.

 

 

Later, Jinki doesn't know why, doesn't know what made him stop Taemin in his rare moment of honesty. Maybe it's that he'd been scared of what Taemin had been about to say, but he doesn't really think so. Maybe it's that he doesn't need to hear Taemin say the words to know what he means. Or maybe it's that he loves Taemin whether Taemin is honest with him or not.

Or maybe.

Maybe Jinki just wanted to kiss Taemin.

So he does.

 

 


End file.
